Charles Ballam

Charles H. Ballam (May 10, 1901 – December 12, 1981) was a Canadian union leader, officeholder and delegate at Newfoundland National Convention.

Ballam was born in 1901 in Curling, Newfoundland, Canada, son of Alice and Manoah Ballam. He was educated at Curling high school, became an apprentice in the electrical department of the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company, operators of the pulp and paper mill in Grand Falls. When Bowater's constructed a pulp and paper mill in Corner Brook in the mid-1920s, Ballam moved there to be close to his former home in Curling. In 1940, his career changed when he became a representative for Sun Life Assurance Company.

Ballam, elected president of Local 64 of the Pulp and Sulphite Workers Union in Corner Brook in 1935, had also attended the founding convention of the Newfoundland Federation of Labour in 1937. In 1939, he relinquished his leadership role with Local 64 to become president of the new federation, a position he held until the following year when he left the Corner Brook mill to enter the insurance business.

Ballam decided to offer himself for one of the two delegate positions assigned to Humber district at the National Convention, that was set up by the British government on December 11, 1945 to determine the political fate of Newfoundland and Labrador. He had won the position with 1,624 votes, second to Pierce Fudge, another well-known and popular labour leader.

At the convention, Smallwood felt he could count on Ballam for support for the motion he planned to introduce early in the convention calling for a delegation to Ottawa to discuss potential terms of union between Canada and Newfoundland. Ballam, in his speech to the convention on Smallwood’s resolution, clearly states that he is

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